Secret video reveals ‘independent’ Adelaide City Council candidates meeting at Anne Moran’s house

A secret video shows 15 Adelaide City Council candidates gathering at veteran councillor Anne Moran’s house – but she says it was no campaign meeting.

Veteran Adelaide City councillor Anne Moran, who has long railed against factions, held a gathering with 15 candidates at her home ahead of the November election.

A 14-minute, secretly recorded video leaked to The Advertiser shows the candidates and Greens MLC Robert Simms arriving at her North Adelaide property on Sunday, September 11.

Ms Moran has been a fierce opponent of council factions and has been regularly outvoted and outmanoeuvred over the past four years by the voting bloc she has dubbed Team Adelaide.

Team Adelaide’s five members are now being challenged by multiple candidates aligned to existing North Adelaide councillors, or are “independent” – many of whom are in the video.

Ms Moran told The Advertiser “it wasn’t a campaign meeting or anything like that” but a gathering of neighbours, friends and some candidates to meet mayoral candidate Rex Patrick.

“At the time, Jane (Lomax-Smith) hadn’t announced and Rex was the only opponent against Sandy (Verschoor), so we put out a call out for anyone who wanted to meet him,” Ms Moran said.

“It wasn’t a tight invitation. It was to introduce neighbours, friends and candidates. I naturally didn’t include Team Adelaide members.”

Councillor Anne Moran at her home in North Adelaide. Photo: Nick Clayton

In attendance were Rex Patrick (mayoral candidate) Janet Giles, Frank Barbaro (Area), Phillip Martin, Sandy Wilkinson, Valdis Dunis, Robert Farnan (North), David Elliott, Ben Ayris, Fiona Hui, Gagan Sharma (Central), Mark Sienbentritt, Sean Cullen-Macaskill, Keiran Snape and Sue McKay (South).

Ms Moran said most candidates were running on open tickets for the November election. “However, I will be putting together a suggested how to vote card.” she said.

Mr Patrick, who holds firm he is independent, confirmed he had attended the gathering with a “number of perspective candidates”.

Adelaide City Council mayoral candidate Rex Patrick

“I have attended other meetings for other candidates, it’s obviously convenient if they were in one spot,” he said.

Mr Patrick said he was approached by a man after the gathering, who he told that he “would not be advocating for anyone in the room”.

Former councillor and now Greens MLC Robert Simms attended the event, with Ms McKay, Mr Snape and Mr Cullen-Macaskill all disclosing they were Greens party members.

Mr Martin and Mr Snape said the meeting was to meet Mr Patrick.

Mr Snape said Mr Patrick made “it very clear he is running an open ticket and not backing candidates”.

Mr Sienbentritt and Mr Elliott have both disclosed they are Labor party members in their nomination forms.

Mr Sharma was a Liberal party member, while Ms Hui was a Liberal Democrat member until August 21.

Greens MLC Robert Simms

Mr Sharma said he was invited to the gathering by another candidate, who had to “seek permission” for him to attend.

“I am always happy to meet new people so I thought ‘why not’,” he told The Advertiser.

“A faction is not for me though and I want to be independent, so I left early. I was only there for 20-25 minutes.”

Mr Ayris, Mr Cullen-Macaskill, Mr Wilkinson and Mr Dunis said the social gathering was to meet other independent candidates and friends of Ms Moran.

“(There was) definitely no discussion of forming factions, since all of us are proudly and loudly independent, coming from a spread of political backgrounds/thinking,” Mr Dunis said.

Mr Wilkinson said the “most important quality of a councillor is their ‘preparedness to be persuaded’ as independents and not be factionally indebted to others”.

Councillor Alexander Hyde, who was part of the Team Adelaide voting bloc, said the secretive meetings were “disappointing but hardly surprising”.

“It shows these so-called independents will say one thing and do another,” Mr Hyde said.

“Our ratepayers deserve to know who is in this faction and whether they have done backroom deals.

“If these candidates can’t be transparent about their basic affiliations, how can you trust anything they say?”